The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War Over the American Dollar

135 Pages·2006·1.06 MB·English

by  Brands

The Money Men
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ENTERPRISE
The Money Men
Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years’ War Over the American Dollar
H. W. Brands
W. W. Norton & Company
New York • London
Copyright © 2006 by H. W. Brands
All rights reserved
First published as a Norton 2007
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write
to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10110
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brands, H. W.
The money men : capitalism, democracy, and the hundred years’ war over the
American dollar / H.W. Brands. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Enterprise)
“Atlas Books.”
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 978-0-39334050-1
1. Capitalists and financiers—United States—History. 2. Finance—United States
—History. I. Title. II. Series: Enterprise (New York, N.Y.)
HG181.B82 2006
332.092'273—dc22
2006009919
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
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W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
Contents
Prologue: The Money Question
1 The Aristocracy of Capital
2 The Bank War
3 The Bonds of Union
4 The Great Gold Conspiracy
5 The Transit of Jupiter
Epilogue: The Money Answer
Notes
For Further Reading
Acknowledgments
The Money Men
Prologue
The Money Question
F
or the first five generations of America’s independent history—from 1776 till
the eve of World War I—a single question vexed American politics and the
American economy more persistently than any other. Political careers were
made and broken on this question; political parties rose and fell. Great wealth
rewarded those who answered it correctly; bankruptcy claimed those who got it
wrong. No question touched more livelihoods and more lives more consistently,
more intimately, more portentously.
The question was the money question. In simplest form it asked: What
constitutes money in the United States? Gold? Silver? Paper currency? Bank
notes? Checks? This central question raised subsidiary questions. How much
money shall there be? Who ought to control it? To what ends?
The money question has been a puzzle for every society since the first
ancient hit on the idea of employing proxies—seashells, shiny rocks, rare metals
—for value. But it was a particular conundrum for the United States during the
eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This period encompassed
the emergence of the two institutions that made modern America what it is
today: democracy and capitalism. From the start an inherent tension existed
between the two. The driving force of democracy is equality, of capitalism
inequality. Democratic equality begins in the political sphere but bleeds into the
economic realm; capitalist inequality arises in the marketplace but encroaches
upon the public square.
The money question lay at the center of the contest between democracy and
capitalism. The democrats demanded that the people control the money supply,
to preserve and extend equality. Money was too important to everyday lives to
be left to self-interested capitalists. The capitalists countered that managing
money was a talent given to few, that even if the democrats were well-meaning
(a dubious premise, in many capitalist minds), their inexpertise would doom
their efforts and destabilize the economy. Besides, money was property, and
property needed protecting from the masses.
Had the two groups—the democrats and the capitalists—been distinct, their